Simon
Blackburn derived this stance [1] from a
Humean account of the
origin of our moral opinions, adapting Hume's genealogical account
in the light of evolutionarygame theory. To support his case, Blackburn
has issued a challenge, Blackburn's Challenge[2], to
anyone who can explain how two situations can demand different
ethical responses without referring to a difference in the
situations themselves. Because this challenge is effectively
unmeetable, Blackburn argues that there must be a realist component in our notions
of ethics.

However, argues Blackburn, ethics cannot be entirely realist
either, for this would not allow for phenomena such as the gradual
development of ethical positions over time. In his 1998 book,
Ruling Passions, Blackburn likens ethics to Neurath's boat, which can be
changed plank by plank over time, but cannot be refitted all at
once for risk of sinking. Similarly, Blackburn's theory can explain
the co-existence of rival ethical theories, for example as a result
of differing cultural traditions - his theory allows both to be
legitimate, despite their mutual contradictions, without dismissing
both views through relativism. Thus, Blackburn's theory of
quasi-realism provides a coherent account of ethical
pluralism. It also answers John Mackie's concerns, presented in his
argument from queerness, about
the apparently contradictory nature of ethics.

Contents

Criticisms

Despite gaining some of the better qualities of the component
theories from which it is derived, quasi-realism also picks up
vulnerabilities from these different components, too. Thus, it is
criticised in some of the ways that moral realism is criticised, for example
by Fictionalism
(see below); it is also attacked along with expressivism and other non-cognitive
theories (indeed it has been regarded by some as a sub-category of
expressivism).

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Fictionalism

It has been claimed that Blackburn's programme is fictionalist, which
he himself disputes. However, there are certainly continuities
between both approaches. Blackburn argues that moral fictionalism is
tantamount to us claiming to hold attitudes that we do not really
have; that we are in some way insincere. In support of his
argument, Blackburn invokes Locke's theory of colour, which defines
colours as dispositional (that is, in the eye of the beholder) but
in some way reliant upon facts about the world. Blackburn
buttresses these arguments by further examples of quasi-realism in
our understanding of the world beyond ethics.[3]

This means that, though the moral fictionalist is in some ways having
cake and eating it, the quasi-realist has a seemingly even more
difficult position to defend. They may feel secure in disagreeing
with Bentham
that talk of human
rights is "nonsense upon stilts" but they would also argue that
such rights could not be said to exist in a
realist sense. Quasi-realism
captures in some important ways the structure of our ethical
experience of the world and why we can assert claims such as "It is
wrong to be cruel to children" as if they were facts even though
they do not share the properties of facts; namely the inference of
independent truth-values.

From this position, Blackburn's "way forward" is to re-assert
Hume's 'common point of view', or the ethical discourse common to
mankind. Blackburn's thought is that though relativists and
realists can agree that certain statements are true within a
certain discourse, a quasi-realist investigates why such discourses
have the structures that they do.[4]

Frege-Geach
Problem

The coherence of Blackburn's quasi-realism has been challenged
most notably by the Frege-Geach problem, which assert
Blackburn's position is self-contradictory. Advocates of
Blackburn's view, however, would contend that quasi-realism in fact
provides an antidote to the Frege-Geach problem by placing
different moral claims in context. There is an important
difference, claim the quasi-realists, between saying It is
wrong to tell lies, and It is wrong to get your brother to
tell lies[5].
Indeed, say the quasi-realists, the Frege-Geach argument exposes
the insensitivity of some realist moral discourse to the complexity
of ethical statements.